Topic: ⚽UEFA Europa League Discussion Thread -- 2022/23 | Group Stages - page 26. (Read 14932 times)

It's time for 2nd leg games and only Sevilla have more significant advantage, but I wouldn't be that much surprised if PSV will make a comeback. My main bets today is Juventus and Sporting ML. In first leg both very heavy favorrites, but failed to win. Despite playing away, they're still favorites.
Offcourse, I put bet on Barca win, I believe in my team, even if we aren't favorites. But I have bad feeling, mainly because all these terrible performances in knockout stages in few past seasons.
And also, Union to qualify @1.65, they're just looking better now, but everything still can happen here.

Dude, I literally made a specific difference that I commented on "decline" regarding goals, not decline in general.

"Any club would feed him" is ignorant of the fact that you need good feeders. He had a great midfield at Dortmund and the best feeder in the world in City (Kevin de Bruyne) and even then, like now if teams discover how to keep the feeders quiet like you can see in past few games, then the goals do not come.

You want an example check out Ronaldo at Al Nassr. Or even at United when the feeders had bad form.

Send Haaland to let us say Jablonec or Lincoln Red Imps (this is Europa not even Conference) and see how well clubs can feed him.

But definitely, we talk about "decline" in different context. Goals can only decline after breaking records

Your discussion is a nice read but I don't understand why you say that Haaland would "decline" if you send him to a club that doesn't feed him. First of all, any club would feed him because he simply is the best on the field and the best to finish. Every club would feed him to the best of their abilities because it is the smartest thing to do. Additionally, check out his scores at RedBull Salzburg, at Borussia Dortmund, and now at Manchester City in a brutally strong league. He is breaking records in the EPL like nobody else ever did before. Haaland is probably going to pulverize Shearer's and Cole's record of 34 goals in a season unless he gets injured.

I know a lot of people talk about how players get fed and there is some truth to that, but thinking rationally about it makes me conclude that I would also feed the best player on the pitch if the situation allows it. The best aren't the best because the get fed, but they get fed because they are the best.

I will admit though that there are some players who aren't really the best but are still able to score more in a good team than in a bad team. No doubt that that is also happening. But whether you are outstanding or not is also an important question because you might have players around you that prefer to score themselves if they have the ability to do so.

Lewandowski also left out some chances so far for Barcelona that he didn't leave out during the excellent years he had in Bayern. But he is still scoring very well this season. As you said if you scored that many goals at some point you can only "decline". It is like Ronaldo and Messi when they scored 48 and 50 goals, respectively. Your next season can only get worse

Can someone tell Rashford to please take a break so my team can win tonight??


I didn't know you're a professional, what is your job and why haven't I seen you in any of the paid pools (sorry if you are in, I can't recall ever seeing your name).

Not sure what you mean by paredventure but I sort of get you. Same with Haaland. Move him to a club that doesn't feed him and he'll also "decline"


I think it's fair. I like him and I'm Barca, and his scoring rate has declined. That's a fact. But it is a dumb fact, because he has scored 20 goals this season already (okay 18 for Barca 2 for World Cup). When you hit crazy highs, you kinda have to decline. Like Bitcoin ATH and price declines

However, It would be unfair to say he is a player in decline, for the reasons you say.

I think "decline in scoring" is an unfair judgement of how he has been. First of all, even the fact that he gets so many defenders on him from his sheer talent is enough for others to have open shots, because this literally happens every 30 minutes each game, someone gets a good chance wide open against goalkeeper, because defenders were all on Lewandowski, which is a great contribution without showing up on stats.

Secondly, he is on a new team, compared to the team he played 150 years for (lol) of course he will have some hard time adjusting to the new system, but he is doing a bang up job at la liga, and I am sure next season he will be even better, back to his old numbers maybe.

It matters. U can't tell. as a professional,  I know when things are really not working well and when things are in order. Lewandowsky is having decline in his scoring rate and pretty sure he knows about it. Barcelona isn't feeding him as much has it was in Bayern. If paredventure Lewandowsky moves to Clubs like Manchester city, u will really understand the differences.

I think Lewandowski have more focus in laliga,  he has always performed very well in most games in laliga. 
The truth is that Lewandowski have really played good role for Barcelona this season,  he doesn't matter if he hasn't scored goals when playing with big teams.

 Leicester used to be a hard but to crack especially for top clubs like Manchester united, chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal. But it was so exciting to see Manchester united dominating through out the match. And i'm sure that Ten hag is setting the system to do more bith in the EPL. And Europa league.
  It's not going to be easy for xavi in Old Trafford. Manchester United is becoming more formidable than it was and I believe it is Ten Hag's only way of proving his work Excellence in England for this season.

I don't know about that, Barca almost lost to United, but then again we probably all remember Villareal beating United in the final, but I think overall, even minus Sevilla the Europa experts then yes the list does seem to favor Spain whenever they meet English teams in the final.

I was mentioning earlier Barca-Manchester United was like a champions league game, and in fact going down the list you see many ties that would have felt like Champions League games...  Juventus, Monaco, etc.

The most interesting thing in over 20 years is the lack of Italian teams who won, in fact only one team reached the final in the same period and still lost to who else but Sevilla

I think it was that domination period that made UNited get the draw, they couldn't play like that all game, they just had a moment of brilliance for a while and then it was gone. Rashford is amazing, 14 goals in 17 games so far, amazing momentum to be on as of right now and that is why I think they are this good, I think it would be quite bad for them if they end up with something else on the second game.

Barcelona looked better for the whole game, if they keep that up they could get a win out of this matchup, but it will be away game for them so we do not know how they will be, maybe they will be great, maybe they will not play as good as they did for this game.

The Spanish clubs always have the history of beating the English clubs especially in Europa League meetings and the people in the top level of it is Sevilla.
Barcelona had the opportunity to do it in their playground but they could not do it because Manchester United is in very good form.
It was ab impressive night between Manchester United and Barcelona and it has been a long time I saw Europa pull that kind of tension except in the finals even most finest doesn't put that kind of tension

And Sergio Busquet if not Dembele likewise would be absent against Manchester United at Old Trafford which Erik Ten Hag has transformed gradually into the fortress Old Trafford use to be during the good old days of the "BOSS" ( Sir Alex Ferguson ).
What's more disturbing is that Barcelona has kept good number of clean sheets but they couldn't last night with the help of the own goal and Marcus Rashford striving pass Ter Stergens left leg..

Sevilla are unarguably the best Spanish side in the Europa League Competition, you don't want to toil with them during the days of Unai Emery as head Coach, he defeated Jurgen Klopp at a certain time during one of them finals.

Barca defense in Europa league and Barca defense in La Liga
saw many memes on twitter on that topic
but, it is all open for now

Sevilla is playing better in La Liga too, planning to go with their away win on weekend, they connected the dots, at least judging by results, since I haven't watch any match last three days

Roma losing was a big surprise for me, as Juve draw at home as well

I only watched the first half (which is still super late for me) and I thought we were the far better team, but of course, as they say, nothing counts if you don't get the goals. I think we just haven't found the way as others did not to silence Rashford, how we can allow him to score from basically simply 2/3 move attacks while we need 10/15 moves attacks is not really good.

The worst moment I agree was seeing our best midfielders coming off, I hope for Pedri it is not longer than a month but it's such a bad time for him to get injured.

Monaco making me happy also

Sounds weird talking about all these teams and it's not Champions League right?

2:2 between Barca and MU, what is more positive result for MU. At some moments MU even dominated, but goals that Barca conceded is really cheap. Especially that one between Ter Stegen and close post, you don't see such mistakes from him often. After substitutions Barca had moments to win game, but didn't made it. We won't have Gavi and Pedri in 2nd leg and it's huge loss.
Sevilla may struggle in La Liga, but Europa league is their playground. They not just won against PSV 3:0, but they done it in style. Bayer - Monaco game was most impressive with Monaco taking lead 2:3 on additional time already.
Juve and Sporting failing to win their games is biggest disappointment. Though, on Juventus game it was questionable moment with handball and not awarded penalty.

Ajax - Union should be very interesting. Odds for Ajax looks attractive, they seem to improved after change of manager, but Union looks scary, they already forget when they lost or got draw last time.
Sporting and Juve is heavy favorites today, while remaining pairs looks very difficult to predict.

1.75 for Barca win is a bit too much understimating MU. Barca looking good, even if they score just 1-2 goals per game recently, but MU  is very solid too recently. Considering that we play at home, win is must to do thing, but I wish that we will win by more than 1 goal to get more confident lead before 2nd. Just too many sad flashbacks from 2nd leg games in previous seasons.

Indeed.  MU became stronger and more collective.  They accumulated 23 points after 10 games since Ronaldo left.  They improve in each game with different mentality and mentality.  It has been 10 years that MU completely failed against Barcelona, ​​they will have to work to change their own situation in more ~ 2 hours.  Unfortunately, they lack the best cards like Martinez, Eriksen… I also predict this match will have a draw result.  If the unexpected happens, perhaps the head coach's "skinhead" style could bode well for them.  Humorous comparison style from successful European coaches - Zidane, Pep and maybe even Ten Hag.

Yep. As Slaman mentioned above, I'm also not too happy with the odds. I feel it should have been almost equal at least. Then again, Barca is probably one of the most in-form top teams in Europe now along with Napoli. Ajax? Bayern? Real? City? Arsenal? PSG? They're all struggling to maintain the kind of performance you expect from them.

United have been collecting points and goals steadily though. Probably most improved seed in 2023.

de Jong's the guy to look out for. Wanted to stay, club didn't really want him, United wants him. Point to prove? Hell yeah.

After watching UEFA Champion League last night, today UEFA Europe League matches are waiting for and have several playoff round matches will waiting for. Excited playoff round match between Barcelona vs Manchester United will start about 7 hours later, I don't have any one team favorite will win at the first leg because Barcelona and Manchester United are in the top perform in domestic league.

Barcelona have opportunity with home match and seems several sportsbook favorite for Barcelona win on the first leg, another excited playoff round matches between Bundesliga team Bayern Leverkusen vs Ligue 1 team AS Monaco.

Tonight, many people will be watching the match Barcelona - Manchester United, but I'm a little surprised how the bookmakers distributed odds of 1.74 for Barcelona to win, against 4.9 for Manchester United.

At first it confused me a little, but then I remembered the recent match between Barcelona and Real Madrid, where Barcelona were also favorites, and in that match they won confidently.

One thing I know for sure, it will be very difficult for the team of Eric ten Hag at the Camp Nou, the last time Barcelona lost to Bayern in October 2022, since then Xavi's wards have not known defeat. Manchester United are a good team, but I doubt they can beat Barcelona away, a draw in this match would be considered an acceptable result for them.